As he spoke, he rested his hand on her sore leg. Her horse shifted restlessly, dislodging his grip as Rialla’s unease communicated itself. Tamas smiled and kneed his horse sideways, following hers.
“Now, what’s getting you all upset?” He pressed his hand against the wound again, this time harder.
It hurt, but Rialla knew her face didn’t show it. She knew that her lack of expression disappointed him. She also knew that somewhere nearby, Tris was getting very angry.
Lightning flashed, followed a few seconds later by a low rumble. Her horse and Tamas’s reacted with similar violence to the sound—aided by a touch of empathically projected fear. The other horses danced and jumped, their herd instinct overwhelming training.
Rialla’s horse jerked its lead free of Tamas’s loose hold and, free of any constraint, put her head between her front legs and kicked. Rialla leaned back, pushing her feet forward. As the mare’s hindquarters fell to the ground and propelled the horse sideways, Rialla shifted her weight appropriately. Her empathy let her know what the horse was going to do a moment before the animal moved.
One of the guards caught the flying lead. His firm grip discouraged Rialla’s mount; it gave a few halfhearted hops before settling down.
The courser that Tamas rode was more successful at ridding itself of its rider than Rialla’s had been, tossing him into a thicket of thorn apple. When he was extracted from the inch-long thorns at last, his wounds were not limited to punctures and scrapes—his arm hung visibly broken at his side. One of the guardsmen had caught Tamas’s horse, and it danced nervously, scattering mud on anything nearby.
Nicely done, commented Tris. I hadn’t thought of using the horses.
Thank you, she replied lightly as her horse danced away from Tamas’s, dragging the man holding the lead several feet.
As her horse turned another circle, Rialla got a clear view of Tamas flexing the arm that had been clearly broken only a moment before. Ignoring her distaste, she probed him briefly, but the only pain that Tamas was feeling was from the thorns.
Tris, she asked, did you do that?
Do what? he asked.
When Tamas was thrown, he broke his arm. She sent Tris a picture of what Tamas’s arm had looked like. Someone healed it. Was that you?
No. There was a pause and then Tris said, I don’t think that anyone here can use green magic; we can usually recognize it in each other. I can usually also tell if someone has used green magic recently, but I don’t see it here. Human magicians can set a bone, using magic as a splint, but it requires much power. Inefficient magicians, humans. Then he added thoughtfully, Just how strong is this magician of yours?
He trained with the former ae’Magi, answered Rialla slowly. Can you tell if a human mage has healed Tamas’s arm?
A human mage can’t heal the arm, explained Tris, he can only set it, like a splint made of magic. He would have to constantly reinforce the spell, and if the magician fell asleep, the magic would cease functioning—unless he used runes, and I could feel those. I can’t feel any magic at all now, but the only human magician I’ve been around was Trenna, the woman who bargained for my service. She was only half-trained; I don’t know if I could tell if a human mage was working magic.
Rialla thought about what Tris told her. She wondered why Winterseine would be so concerned with Tamas’s broken arm that he would drain his magic and pretend to heal it when there was no one to impress but his servants—it seemed out of character from what she remembered of her master.
Rialla shivered, and speculated uneasily about magic, human and green. What kind of power, she wondered, would the prophet of a god wield?
7
The stone wails of Lord Winterseine’s keep loomed darkly over the party of tired riders.
Moonlight glinted off the ivy gathered at the base of the outside walls, lending an eeriness to the hold’s appearance.
As they crossed the drawbridge, Rialla glanced down into the dark waters of the moat that surrounded the keep. The moat wasn’t as rank as most of its kind; Winterseine had it drained once a year and cleaned of debris so it smelled mainly of algae and rotting plants, rather than less wholesome sewage.
The aged boards of the drawbridge creaked under the weight of the horses. The heavy chains that had been used to lift the bridge in times past had fallen limply into the moat, where they rusted and grew long strings of algae.
The entrance to the keep was adequately defended by the heavy iron portcullis that blocked the entrance. As far as Rialla knew, the ancient drawbridge had not been lifted this century. The keep was small and strategically unimportant, so it had escaped most of the ravages of the Rethian wars. Few robbers were desperate enough to take on the experienced fighters that manned the keep now that the war was over, and Winterseine preferred to avoid the petty bickering and feuding that took up so many landholders’ time and resources.
Rialla was unable to repress a shudder as the heavy ironwork of the portcullis dropped behind them, trapping her inside. For a moment she felt a frantic urge to fight against her bonds. She found herself reaching for Tris’s reassuring presence; knowing he was nearby made it easier to continue.
They rode directly to the keep entrance, where grooms waited to take the weary horses. While Winterseine and the rest of the party stopped in the entrance hall, one of the guardsmen escorted Rialla down the stone stairway that led to the holding cells. After making sure she had bread, water and straw in the small room, he removed the wrist manacles and left her alone.
Moonlight drifted in through a small window near the ceiling; its deep-set iron bars crossed the pale stone floor—a constant reminder of the room’s purpose. The sound of water lapping against rock drifted faintly up from the deep hole underneath the sanitation grate in the far corner of the cell.
Rialla looked around with dawning recognition. She’d been given the same holding cell that she’d had when they brought her here the first time. For confirmation she knelt by the door and ran her fingers over the stone nearby. Her searching fingers found the crude letters scratched in the granite. It was too dark for her to read what was written there, even if some of the scratches hadn’t been too faint to see—but she didn’t need to read the words.
“Isst vah han onafaetha,” she spoke them softly, pronouncing them carefully, as her father had. “Without faith there is nothing.”
Until she’d become a slave, they were the only written words she knew, although she had spoken several languages. Her father had worn a gold disk on a chain; inscribed in the disk were those five words, the motto of her clan.
“This was the cell that they put me in the first time,” she said without looking up, knowing that Tris was behind her. “How did you come in?”
“Through the wall.”
Rialla twisted to look at the solid stone wall. Raising her eyebrows, she looked at Tris.
He shrugged. “Stone is not as easy for me to pass through as wood, but if you know how to ask it is not impossible—just slow.”
She nodded and rose to her feet, uncomfortable with her vulnerable position. “I’m glad you came.”
“Glad I followed you here, or glad I came to your cell tonight?”
She smiled. “Both actually. I needed to talk to you about Tamas’s arm. Can you think of any reason Winterseine would heal it? I don’t remember him ever working magic that… casually.”
It was difficult to see details in the dark little room, but Rialla saw him lift his arm to his face and knew Tris was rubbing his beard.